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I'm working on a few small games, and I was wondering if I should use American or British English for my user interface? I'm not targetting any specific country, and this will probably be the only localization.

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    Why not use geolocation to make the decision? I hate applications that use Americanised English, because I'm English. Apr 23, 2012 at 23:42
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    @codeinthehole - doing localisation properly is hard, for a small game you don't necessarily have the resources (or time) to do a proper job. So rather than doing a half-baked job, not localising might be the correct solution.
    – ChrisF
    Apr 24, 2012 at 7:45
  • @codeinthehole And you can imagine how often Canadian English is an option...
    – msanford
    Apr 24, 2012 at 15:01
  • @ChrisF .. come on, don't be soft. Life is hard .. it doesn't mean we should just give up. Apr 25, 2012 at 6:56
  • @codeinthehole - I didn't mean it that way :)
    – ChrisF
    Apr 25, 2012 at 7:58

1 Answer 1

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As much as it pains me to say it (as a Brit), if you're not going to have any localisation go with American spellings. This will be the preferred spellings for the vast majority of users - either as native speakers (Americans far outnumber the British) or as second language speakers (though there are significant number of those who use British English spellings).

The only exception would be if you are going for a "quirky, English vibe" for your game.

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    Quite right old chap monocle
    – Ben Brocka
    Apr 23, 2012 at 23:23
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    +1, but it's not completely true. In central Europe we learn Oxford/Britisch english and for me it's colour, while color is just plain wrong :) And we europeans far outnumber the us-americans. (Btw: What about aussies?)
    – kaiser
    Apr 24, 2012 at 14:57
  • @kaiser- fair enough. I'll update the answer.
    – ChrisF
    Apr 24, 2012 at 14:58
  • @kaiser, Canadians use British english as well.
    – CaffGeek
    Apr 24, 2012 at 17:13
  • Also not just spelling but word choice preferences, e.g. brackets vs parentheses, and things like how to write a date and measurement units Jul 25 at 20:15

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